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User blog:Epikpie/A Brief History of Various Items in PvP
A Brief History of Cloak Use in PvP In the Pre-Katar days, the Cloak of the Undying was a brokenass piece of shit. Its inception was marked by a very few immortal players beating the collective shit out of the rest of the server. Due to the fact that cloak-users were literally immortal, the cloak immediately received a nerf - a cooldown time that set a limit on how fast the cloak user could heal back up to full. Buuut the nerf didn't even matter cuz cloak was still a brokenass piece of shit, and still basically made the user immortal with a bunch of speed. After the release of Katar and Nomad items, however, Cloak's healing was rapidly outpaced by the exponential growth of weapon damage rates and cloak was left behind as a subpar armor in comparison to the health offered by Xyerite and potions. That soon changed, however, when a user discovered that by using cloak with fire staff, you glitched and was able to go at an incredible speed. Coupled with the extreme damage and speed gains already offered by Fire Elemental, the user used Cloak to rise to the top of the PvP scene. This is now commonly referred to as the Cloak/Fire meta. The Cloak/Fire meta dominated PvP until it was brought to an abrupt end when the glitch that gave Cloak/Fire its insane speed was patched. This was quickly followed by the release of Axsuroth weaponry and the Defence stat. Faced with weapons that were quickly out-damaging its limited health, in addition to the weakening of its synergy with Fire Elemental, Cloak cycled out as the main PvP armor. In the months that came next, Cloak use in PvP fell in decline. It was simply inferior to the newer armors, and with the replacement of the cooldown system with the Bat system, Cloak simply did not offer enough in comparison to the newer special buff armors. Halloween 2016 however saw the release of a peculiar weapon now known as the Bat Scythe. Before its recent nerf, Bat Scythe not only featured an overwhelmingly powerful special, it also gave Cloak a third bat. Despite being an extremely powerful buff to the Cloak, however, this was not enough to give Cloak back its place in the PvP meta. It was not until the release of Prestige levels that Cloak again saw widespread use in PvP. Prestige offered an immense boost to base health, and Cloak, an armor that relied on base health, saw huge gains in power. The release of Prestige gave Cloak an overwhelming health advantage over Cuirass, the meta armor at the time. For the next few months, Cloak again dominated Riltak. Coupled with Bat Scythe, Cloak users were incredibly difficult to kill, and the combination obliterated all non-cloak opposition. But the Bat Scythe Cloak meta ended much quicker than it had begun. Steel recognized the p2w aspect of a paid armor meta, and both Cloak and Bat Scythe received huge nerfs. Bat Scythe no longer had synergy with Cloak, and Cloak itself became weaker than comparable armors. Just as it looked like Cloak was about to cycle out as the main pvp armor, however, the game-changing Melee weapon update came around. The meta was revolutionized by the new gameplay styles that the updated Melee weapons had to offer, and Cloak was no exception. Coupled with an 80% damage reduction shield, Cloak/Shield became an incredibly resilient combination in PvP. Unfortunately, the Cloak's newfound prominence didn't last long. While the Cloak hasn't received any nerfs since then, the addition of Vyrelord Armor and the buff to Interdimensional Hauberk gave Cloak extremely heavy competition, and Cloak hasn't been able to outpace them yet. But Cloak remains waiting, looking for any oppurtunity to explode back into the game and dominate the PvP meta once more. A Brief History of Degrade Specials in PvP In the pre-Nomad days, Degrade saw limited use in PvP, as the main reason to run a degrade weapon was for the weapon damage itself and not the degrade bonus that came tacked onto it. One of the main reasons behind this was due to the relatively slow pace of PvP before Axsuroth. The strongest potion pack at the time only gave a 40% speed boost, and speed buffs above 50% were unheard of. This sluggish pace allowed Melee weapons to see viable play, as characters were not fast enough to out-maneuvre a sword-wielding opponent. Of course, the degrade special was still helpful, but not moreso than the weapon itself. A great example of this was the Bone Sword - it was run in sets mainly because it was the strongest two-handed Melee weapon, and though it had a nice special to boot, it was not run only because of the special. With the release of Nomad weaponry, however, that all changed. Powerful degrade meleees such as the Redcliff 2h Sword and the Grim Axe were made, and they defined the PvP meta. The Grim Axe in particular saw widespread use on Riltak, with almost every set running it for its huge melee prowess and also its potential for a one-shot instant win in battle. With the release of the Defence stat, use of the Grim Axe began to decline. Users could no longer one-shot opponents with a single hit of the 'r' key - the Defence stat made sure that did not happen. And though it still dealt a great deal of damage, the inability to one-shot opponents left a crippling mark on the otherwise omnipresent use of the Grim Axe. This marked the beginning of the end for the Grim Axe. The true end of its use came with the release of Axsuroth and Easter weaponry, and the creation of a new "most powerful" set of weapons. The relesae of Axsuroth and Easter weaponry saw a graet increase in the amount of tools a player could use to decimate their opponents. One of the most significant changes, however, was the replacement of the Fire Blast Staff. The Blast Staff, which had formerly been a staple in PvP, was replaced by the Eggs of Peril as the strongetest special. Another change, however, was the addition of the Gigantic Crossbow and the KotSS Bow to the PvP arsenal. Before Axsuroth, many people thought it was necessary to include a Melee weapon in every set. One user, though, decided that this model was outdated and stupid, and that melee weapons were unnecessary for success in PvP. So he threw them out of his set, and made a set composed of entirely ranged weapons - Crossbow, Bow, and Bazooka. That particular arrangement of weapon types has persisted until today as debatably the strongest set ever used in PvP. Despite that, degrades weren't truly gone from PvP yet. When it was first released, the Orinthian Greatsword was the most broken piece of shit ever created in PvP. Its special pierced Defence, dealt some 700 damage - over half of the average PvP'ers health at the time - and had far longer reach than the Grim Axe, while only taking up 35% of the degrade bar. This was obviously broken as fuck and the Orinthian Greatsword's degrade was unceremoniously nerfed into the ground. But there were still other degrades that people could use. For example, one of the top leaderboarders of the time included Overseer Waraxe in his set. Back then, Overseer Waraxe had a special that took half a second to charge up and dealt 600 damage in a wide AoE. The leaderboarder used this special just as a person was about to die, in order to give him an instant 600 damage to finish his opponent off before they could use a healing potion. Later on, both the Shadow Sword and the Snowman Sword saw widespread use due to their defence-increasing capabilities. Yet none of these saw widespread use, and were never regarded as within the meta. It was only with the release of Prestige levels that Melee weapons returned to the PvP mainstream. With the increase in base health saw an increase in the power of the Cloak, and by association the Bat Scythe. Bat Scythe's passive synergy with Cloak, along with its overwhelmingly powerful Degrade special, pushed the set over-the-top for a couple of months until its eventual nerf. Soon after the Bat Scythe nerf came the FE update. All defence-decreasing specials were removed from the game, and the Overseer Mace's special was replaced with a shield. Nevertheless, there was one degrade that still saw play - the Golden Katana. The GK had been touted among the strongest melee weapons in the game years before its buff due to its stat-increasing capabilities, and those stats gave it plenty of synergy with the newly-buffed melee weapons. The Golden Katana continues to see play today, either with or as a counter against other melee weapons. A Brief History of Area-of-Effect Weapons in PvP Area-of-Effect Weapons, or Splash Damage weapons, have seen use in PvP for as long as they have been around. The very first Area of Effect weapon to see widespread use in PvP were the Blast Staffs. The Blast Staffs were much more powerful in comparison to other weapons at the time. In the specials area, especially, the Blast Staffs were very strong. to be written moar i guess Category:Blog posts